Coronavirus effect: WhatsApp to limit videos on status to 15 seconds in India to save bandwidth

With over a billion users around the world, WhatsApp is easily one of the most used messaging apps today. And, in the midst of a worldwide lockdown to curb the menace of the Coronavirus outbreak, the usage has certainly spiked up. Indians, in particular, love using the app to stay in touch, send forwards, share memes and videos. That also leads to consuming a lot of bandwidth, something that we are being told is constrained with so many people staying home and tuning in to streaming services and playing online games.

Previously, YouTube, Netflix and other streaming websites agreed to cut down their video quality to free up more bandwidth. Now, WhatsApp is also joining the league by limiting status videos to 15 seconds. You were allowed to post a 30-second video up on your status previously, but now WhatsApp has cut it down to just 15 seconds to reduce bandwidth consumption.

The information was shared by the folks over at WABetaInfo on Twitter. The tweet read, “You can no longer send videos to WhatsApp status if they are longer than 16 seconds: only videos having a duration of 15 seconds will be allowed. This is happening in India and it’s probably an initiative to reduce the traffic on the server infrastructures.”

ANNOUNCEMENT: You can no longer send videos to WhatsApp Status if they are longer than 16 seconds: only videos having a duration of 15 seconds will be allowed. This is happening in India and it's probably an initiative to reduce the traffic on the server infrastructures.

— WABetaInfo (@WABetaInfo) March 28, 2020

The new update will impact all users in India, no matter if you are using a stable version or a beta version. But it’s expected that this change is only temporary till the lockdown lifts and strain on the bandwidth comes down.

Just to refresh, WhatsApp Status is basically Instagram Stories for the platform. It replaced text-based status messages (they’re still there but with a different name) to let users upload photos and videos to share with friends. The content disappears automatically after 24 hours. And by the looks of it, if cutting down the video length to 15 seconds will let many others enjoy the fruits of the internet. It’s just a small luxury to give up in the larger scheme of things.

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